You don't choose The Academy. The Academy chooses you.

I had no idea how those words would change my life, until the day the most dangerous man I've ever met waltzed onto my farm and left us a death sentence.

My younger brother has been chosen for The Academy: the prestigious, secret school of magic hidden within the folds of our mundane world. A place where there's no guarantee you'll make it out alive. If he doesn't go, our entire family will be killed.

It's the same invitation my older brother received three years ago--and he never came home. The Academy has already killed one sibling, and I'll be damned if they take another. So I do the only thing an older sister can: chop off my hair, strap on two bras to flatten the girls, and take my brother's place.

Magic and monsters are real. Assassins are coming for me, and the dead are prone to rise. What's a girl faking it as a boy supposed to do? Being accepted into an elite school of magic, monsters, and assassins was not my idea of higher education. But here I am, fighting my way through the deadly physical and mental tests of the Culling Trials to claim my right to be taught.

In a cutthroat world where no one is as they seem, the golden rule is simple: Trust no one. The Academy tells us we should just look out for ourselves. That we should leave the fallen behind and ask no questions.

Not on my watch.